A business magnate and philanthropist in the Ho West District of the Volta Region, Samuel Kofi Danku has called on government and other stakeholders in Ghana’s Agricultural sector to ensure that more investment goes into technological agriculture in order to meet modern trends and demands of the sector.
According to him, this will not only promote food security in the country but will also empower local farmers to produce more for export and promote the creation of jobs to address the gaping unemployment situation the country is currently constrained with.
The objective of the Sustainable Development Goal – SDG5 which focuses on eradication of hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition and promotion of sustainable agriculture, which includes the target that by 2030, there should be an end to hunger and calls on nations to ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.
This 2030 SDG target, Mr. Danku believes is achievable if all hands are brought on board with the effective involvement of the major stakeholders in the sector including the central government by investing in modern ways of farming.
Mr. Danku was speaking to the media on the side lines of an event to commission a tractor he had purchased from his personal proceeds to support the activities of farmers in the Ho West District at Abutia on Wednesday August 21, 2019.
The businessman who also announced plans for the establishment of a cooperative union of farmers and provide other farm inputs to them said he was motivated to promote farming in the district because “it is paramount to see everyone developing”.
The Chief of Abutia Kpota, a farming community in the area, Togbe Tsali IV, who could not hide his joy was full of praise for the tractor donor and called on others who had the means to emulate the gesture shown by the businessman for the development of the agricultural sector.
A representative of the District Chief Executive for Ho West District, Hudson Domey in an address on behalf of the DCE, Ernest Appau, stated that the initiative by Mr. Samuel Kofi Danku ties in with government’s “Planting For Food and Jobs – PFJ” program which was targeted at farmers with the objective of job creation, food sufficiency and export.
He has therefore pledged the support of the Ho West District Assembly to the initiative and expressed gratitude to the philanthropist for the gesture.
“We are in the assembly and it is the development of the area that we seek to achieve. Once whatever someone is doing will move the assembly forward, once it is within the assembly, we will support the initiative”, the DCE’s representative said.
A 5-member committee was subsequently inaugurated to manage the equipment aimed at promoting food production in the Ho West District.
